Zanelli Releases MultiPageImporter for Importing both PDF and INDD Files
Well, it’s time yet again for another episode of “cool (and free!) scripts that can save you bundles of time and energy.” At the beginning of the year, I wrote a post about Scott Zanelli’s PDFplacer script, which places each page of a PDF on to a different page of your InDesign document. That’s pretty cool, but within an hour, someone replied asking for more: The ability to import InDesign documents in the same way… then other folks asked for more features, too.
Scott, recently graduated and with too much time on his hands, complied. The new version of the script works with both PDF and INDD files. It’s also renamed MultiPageImporter. You can download it here:
Original version from March, 2009, for CS4
Newer version (2.5), from March, 2010
Newest version (for CS5) from December 2010
There are detailed instructions in the folder (after it is unzipped).
Here’s a screen capture of the import dialog box:
But here’s my question: Why do you want to import all the pages of one InDesign document into another? How are you using this script to make your life easier? Just curious.
Last week there was a post on the U2U forum from someone who had created a six panel brochure as individual pages and then tried to move them into spreads.
Every page had items bleeding off the edge. Of course, once they were in spreads those items bled into the other pages.
The best suggestion I could come up with was to create a new file with the spreads and then place the entire InDesign document page by page into it.
Another use would be for calendars where you could do the entire vertical spread as single pages and then place into a new file for imposition.
I had 30 book covers to create, then they needed to go into our publications catalogue. It was only 30 indesign pages to import to each page, it didn’t take long, but this script would have it done in no time.
i install it,but when runnning the script it always pops up a nag screen saying ‘The “Verdana” font is required but not installed. The script cannot run unless it is installed. Quitting…’
i do have a verdana font installed,so i am open for any suggestion?!
oh,im using mac osx 10.4.11, and indesign cs2 version 4.0.5
To answer David’s question…
I produce two newspapers, and their respective printers call for PDFs produced to fit the image area of their output templates — which is to say, cropped to the edges of the inner margins.
Not wanting to design pages that way, I have kept the document with the proper margins.
With one paper, I use the AdobePDF driver to set up a custom page size that outputs the PDFs to their trim requirements, since InDesign’s PDF Export offers no controls for adjusting the size of the page.
With the other paper, a tabloid with many more pages than the first, I’ve recently experimented with creating another document, sized to the trim, importing the original InDesign document, and then using InDesign’s export features.
This script looks like a promising way to automate some of the drudgery there, and I deeply appreciate and admire Scott’s efforts.
i think the anwser was not intended for me,but thanx anyway:)
-i’ve opened script and as i find,it’s only for CS3,so it’ my bad for not noticing/not working.
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to all on this site – keep on the good work.
I work at a company that designs grammar school textbooks. Every page of the student edition gets reduced and placed in the teacher’s edition. In some books that can be over a thousand pages. I’m eager to try this script.
Dumb question, but is there anyway to do this with images? We often import 60-80 images into a templated layout and want each image on its own page, centered on the page. Loading all the images into the cursor was a great workflow enhancement with CS3, but we still have to click on the page for each image, navigate the next page, click again — 80 times. I like the idea of this script, but is there a similar workflow for simple PSD or JPG images?
Brooks
@Brooks: Interesting idea, but your need is a little different. The script takes a single multi-page file and splits it up… You want to take a bunch of independent files and place them. One idea, though: Use Acrobat Pro to merge all the images together into a single PDF (using File > Combine Files) and then use this script to make the InDesign file out of that PDF file.
Brooks,
The ImageCatalog script which comes with inDesign can do what you want. Another option is the Bridge Contact Sheet script.
To answer David Blatner’s question:
I work at a Chicago company that publishes newspapers in different neighborhoods, and a few of our sections are shared. Once the shared sections are laid out, they need to be placed onto the correct pages for each paper. We’re currently using Layout Zone and snippets, but these methods can’t deal with text that jumps to another spread. You lose your automated next page/previous page jump lines, and the text frames are no longer linked. As a work around, I’ve been grouping the jump page elements and dragging it onto the workspace of the opening page, and then I’m able to select all elements of the layout when exporting, retaining my jumps. If this script solves these issues, it’ll be awesome cause it’ll eliminate workflow steps and avoid the additional files produced when exporting shared versions.
One little options that is missing in that marvelous script and also in the native place command in Indesign, is the ability to place in “Reverse Order” and “Rotate 180 degree”. This could help a lot when trying to build document that shall be printed “tumbled” or “head-to-tail”. Meaning half a book is printed one way, and the other half the other way when the book is flipped upside down.
I installed this on my PC at work, and it sometimes gives me the annoying error message of “error:this would cause one or more objects to leave the pasteboard,” and doesn’t work. I’m importing the same test file into different files, and it sometimes works, and sometimes doesn’t. Oddly enough, it doesn’t work when I try to place the test file onto a document made from the same template as the the test file, but it does work when I place it onto a file made from a completely different template. Any ideas?
I hate that pasteboard error. I’ve gotten that error in other situations for no explicable reason, and so have my collegeauges. We all hate it because we’ve never been able to understand why it happens.
We publish 100 page books that are produced as seperate spreads at a time so that we can have various files out to various dept stages. In the end, I end up opening 50 IN design docs one at a time and saving out two single PDFs that need to be renamed page 1 and 2 for example. IS there an automated way to drop my Indesign docs on a droplet that will automatically open and write the two pDFs automatically?
I have been asked to recreate two books that are now out of print. One is 2000 pages and the other is 1000 pages.
I’ve been asked to scan the pages and drop them page by page into a new document.
What is the best way for me to achieve this?
Thanks for this, it saves us bundles of time
Does anyone know a way to batch import images into Indesign, each one in a different page ?
The same ideal as zanelli’s script, but for a folder of images (JPEG, TIFF, PSD etc) instead of PDF/INDD files.
Great! Thanks a lot!!
Thanks for this, it saves us bundles of time
I do this frequently for booklet printing on books that bind to the top for mockups and short run output.
This script has saved us loads of time as we produce technical manuals. In an effort to save paper and printing costs we started printing our manuals 4 up on 11×17 sheets of paper, then cropping and binding. This has made our life a lot easier as before we had to place each page by hand. Thanks!!
Can this script place multipage PDFs in a “Cut and Stack” fashion? If not, is there one out there that will?
I sometimes have to use a small printer that doesn’t have this feature, and making a new ID doc, and modifying spreadsheets for Data-Merge can get time consuming … any thoughts?
TO: Koby Goldberg
You can import a batch of images using data merge.
You can even format the image frame with styles that will stay put.
There is a great video tutorial on this by the InDesigner
I’m looking for a script that does the multipage pdf import but that will import them in a text zone.
Does anyone has seen one like this ?
Will this work with CS5?
@Alan Bell,
it will but you need to modify the scripts parameters for Crop Types. at least I had to to get it to work with Media Crop Types
I am using cs5 and i need to place a 299 pg pdf file. i used the default javascript ‘placemmultipagepdf” to place the entire pdf file in the document, however the pdf doesnt place with my document setup with specific bleed requirements. nor can i select all the objects at once and adjust it.
i download this multipage importer script. i put the jsx file in my scripts folder. but when i would go click and try to place the pdf in a new document with this script , it gives me an error/
Error number: 55
Error string: object does not support the property or method ‘cropcontent’
engine: main
file: /applications/adobe indesign cs5/scripts/scripts panel/samples/javascript/multipageimporter2.5.jsx
Line: 124
Source: var croptypes = [pdfcrop.cropcontent, pdf crop.cropart, pdfcrop.croppdf, pdfcrop.croptrim,pdfcrop.cropbleed, pdfcrop.cropmdia];
what am i doing wrong? or what other options do i have?
Thanks in advance
Mya,
I had the same error today in CS5. It is a version issue. See @Alan Bell above. I don’t know about you, but looking at script code scares me. I’ll wait for a CS5 version to surface!
I thought maybe I was on to something with this passage from the download manual (page 8), but no matter what I did to the pdf, I still got the error when placing the pdf using the script in ID:
Crop to
The ‘Crop to’ pop-up menu allows the choice of how the imported pages are cropped when they are placed.
When importing PDFs, select one of these five choices: Art, Crop, Trim, Bleed or Media. Not every PDF file will have all five crop type entries. If the script gives a PDF Placement Error, it means that the PDF file being placed does not have the crop type chosen in the ‘Crop to’ pop-up menu. This can be corrected by either choosing a different crop type or opening the PDF in Acrobat and performing a Save As…
@Mya and Joan
I just figured this out from a german forum (I love google translate
) so I thougth I should share it with you. Call it a christmas present 
If you open the script from march 2010 (v.2.5) in notepad or Extendscript Toolkit (I don’t know if you get it in any other than Master CS5) just search for “PDFCrop.cropContent” (without the “s) and your first hit should be line 124 which start with:
“var cropTypes = [PDFCrop.cropContent, …”.
Just delete “PDFCrop.cropContent” and then on the line under you delete “Bounding Box,” so the line looks like this:
var cropStrings = [“Art”, “Crop”, …
Then you just use Save As and call the file something like “MultipageImporter2.5 CS5″ and add it like a normal script. Restart InDesign and you are up and running
I hope this post is understandable, just found out there are some english words I’m missing. Like what is the name of the symbol: ” ?
@OMPOPO aahh! youre amazing! thank you and merry christmas to you as well! haha
ps. @Joan, the way Ompopo explained in simple detail how to edit the script is NOT hard, i promise you could do it. i say this because i did it and i have NEVER edited a script before. try it, it wont hurt. =)
THANKS AGAIN!
what an awesome forum!!
Mya + OMPOPO
Bravely entering a whole new world! Worked like a charm. Thanks for the fix and best of the season to you both!
Thanks for the help! I updated the script to include ompopo’s CS5 fixes, tested it (seems to be working fine), and added a link to that version at the top of the post.
So CS5 users, you don’t have to edit anything in the script, just download the CS5-friendly version.
I downloaded the newest version for CS5 but could not find the instructions after unzipped. Should there be any?
Thanks a lot for this script, I have been using indesign for about 5 years and i miss the feature of laying out an entire pdf document automatically which is why i previously kept a copy of indesign cs, because i deal with magazine and booklet formatting. But, I can remove mr.cs now
. Now all i need is a script to allow me to output a new document within indesign cs5 with all marks like was possible with inbooklet in cs2. Again, another reason why I keep a copy of cs2.
Thanks a Mil
Thanks so much for the script, it works great!
I am trying to produce a 2up document (spread 1 = page 1×2, spread 2 = page 2 x 2, etc.) Is there a way that I can use this script (or another 1) to acomplish this?
Thanks to anyone that was trying to answer my previous question. I have actually answered it on my own.
*Create the master doc to final specs (i.e., 5.5 x 8.5).
*Open a new doc (in my case letter landscape [can be used for 2-6 up])
*Run the script with relative to spine unchecked and the position that you want your copy placed in, marked in the grid. (Do this as many times as needed.)
you can create a 2up doc in minutes rather than an hour or 2 depending on your master doc size. Saves me a TON of time and frustration.
Chance less following scripts like Import multiple indesign pages..
Thank you so so much
Hello. thanks for the script. i have a PDF File with 500 pages. The script works perfect until page 150, then Indesign cs5 Crash, every time. i dont know why.
Ugh! I finally got the script to work but I can’t seem to edit my text in INDD. I checked the security settings on my PDF and it had none.
Anyone have this experience and/or know what I can do to edit my new INDD doc. I was so excited to see it work and now I’m back in
Thanks.
ps In my layers panel the entire book show on one layer and still has the pdf extension…my layer is not locked and I cannot figure this one out. Anyone? thanks.
Penny, were you thinking this script would enable ID to edit your PDF? It doesn’t — InDesign is not a PDF editor.
You need a commercial tool such as PDF2ID to actually convert your PDF to ID.
Thank you for your response. My next question is, what would be the need to convert the PDF to INDD if you can’t edit it. Why would you want to convert ?
Thanks so much, Penny
Penny, the above script doesn’t convert anything at all. It merely places PDFs into an InDesign document as images, just like you can do with TIFFs, JPEGS, and other image file formats. It has nothing to do at all with editability. Or “converting”, for that matter.
This particular script is very useful in our office workflow, because at times we get “print-ready” PDFs from inexperienced users and we have to do stuff such as putting several files together, add page numbering, make all page sizes the same and add front/back matter. All of it can be done with Acrobat Pro (with added help from Enfocus Pitstop), but … it’s so much easier within InDesign.
And if the author spots a typo on one of his pages, we simply ask a new PDF.
Thank you so much for your comprehensive response. I understand now.
Is there anyway to edit a PDF to add style, etc.
I am converting a BLOG to a PDF to make a book. The blog outputs as a PDF. I have seen software that does this but at this point, its cost prohibitive for me.
Any ideas or suggestion?
Thanks again for you prompt and helpful responses,
Penny
Penny, as Jongware pointed out, you would need PDF2ID to convert the PDF to editable objects (to actually edit inside them). Other methods: you could open the document in Adobe Illustrator, edit them inside Adobe Acrobat, or use one of the many PDF editing tools on the market (do a google search for “edit PDF”).
@Koby Goldberg
You can use and adjust the following script to place multiple images on different pages.
http://toolbox.brunoherfst.com/?p=1382
thank you very much for the script.
Though its a little hard to believe for all that cash, InDesign doesn’t support this natively.
Sometimes I wonder about how half baked a lot of Adobe products are, not to mention needing to crack open the manual for things that are completely intuitive in other programs just by looking at the screen.
Love the script. Using it to imposition pages from a PDF so that the file can be printed and then bound into books.
I am having a an issue where is crashes after 330ish (332 to 336) pages have been inserted. This happens on multiple window PC’s (All windows7) and all of them have Indesign CS5.
If I break the file into 300 page pieces they work fine.
The error message is useless: “Indesign has stopped working”
Thanks for the script and thanks for the help.
Dave
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. Just saved me from having to place 490 pages and either stepping and repeat all or placing them again. So, saved me from having to place a total of 980 pages. Great script!
Howdy,
I downloaded the CS5 friendly version that was referenced in the comments above and I can only import the first page of my PDF document. Whatever I try I only seem to be able to import the first page. First, I tried launching the script and loading the PDF. Then, I launched inDesign and made 10 blank pages to import the PDF. In each instance only the first page imported.
The Multipage Importer dialog box won’t allow me to change the number of pages to import. (i.e. Import page 1 of 1.) I get the error message “The end Page Number must be less than 1″
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks
Unfortunately, I have been out of the printing industry for over three years now and thus do not have access to the latest ID version and Mac OS (I am now a Microsoft Dynamics AX developer). Because of this, I am sorry to say that further updates to fix the current problems will not come to fruition (at least from me). As this script is released under the GNU license, others may or have already, made updates to keep it working in current and future versions of ID.
I apologize for any heartache this may cause now or in the future.
SZ
I’m importing hundreds of Korean Docs that came in as PDF’s and needed to be aligned a certain way. Can’t tell you how much time this script saved. Thank you.
Is there a way to get this to work with importing illustrator files (with bleeds)?
The default import scripts work fine if there is no bleed, however, there are no options for alignment, which forces the bleed to align to the artboard.
Hi,
Just tested it and it worked great in ID CS5!!!
Is there a way to have it insert the pdfs on the even pages only? Or maybe there’s a way to make InDesign add an empty page between each imported pdf?
All the very best ,
Daniel
@Daniel:
Check out this adobe forum thread to add an empty page for every second page:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2310029
I have a 60 page book (indb) file that I now want to print to booklet. I have followed all the advice above. Works wonderfully BUT I cannot place spreads. The mpi looks at each page as a single page. When I try to place single pages (vs spreads) Acrobat ads a bleed to the inside (spine) causing overlap, even though I set it up with no “inside” bleed. There is a lot of crossover this magazine. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks.